Equus

Peter Shaffer’s Equus was the cause celebre of the seventies. It was the play that turned the Schubert Organization fortunes around when it premiered on Broadway and made a star of Anthony Hopkins, and it became infamous for the shock of having a young man naked on stage at a time when puritan values were still in existence.

Brenda White’s revival for Arts Theatre has wisely kept it in period and although the play has undoubtedly dated it still packs a walloping dramatic punch. Written at a time when the existential philosophies of family repression by Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing was in vogue, Shaffer’s story of a deeply disturbed young teenager who has a psychosexual fixation on horses which led to him blinding five of them with a metal spike in one horrific night, still has the power to engage, provoke and repulse.

Alan Strang, a troubled 17-year-old, is court-appointed to a disillusioned provincial children’s psychiatrist Martin Dysart in the hope he may be able to help him. Dysart peels layer after layer of the boy’s psyche like an Agatha Christie sleuth in an effort to reveal the reasons for the boy’s despicable act. He uncovers a religiously fanatic mother, a sexually frustrated father who visits porn movie houses and a female stable-hand who is responsible for setting the horrific events in motion.

In the pivotal roles of Strang and Dysart, White has astutely cast newcomer-to-drama Christopher Batkin, and community theatre regular Dom Tennison. Batkin, as the sexually aroused naked-riding youth, was indeed impressive displaying raw teenage emotion, conflicted rage and a touching innocence. Tennison, as the shrink who’s stuck in a sterile marriage, was also impressive, empathetically drawing answers from Strang, at times confrontational, but always sympathetic to the boy’s fixation. They played off each other beautifully.

As the parents, Katherine Morgan and John Benetto offered fairly two-dimensional emotions, Josephine Dino was a formidable court lawyer, whilst Claire Argente’s Jill Mason captured the free-spirited nature of the character and looked incredibly sexy naked. Keil JT Gailer’s set of wooden beams and black square boxes captured the play’s multiple locations and worked well for White’s staging which had the entire cast seated on stage at all times. His wire horse heads were also a plus. It wasn’t War Horse but it was effective - a special round of applause to the hard-working performers who lovingly brought these animals to life.

Despite Shaffer’s play being big on psycho-babble it still entertains, and White’s production of it was intense, reverent and totally satisfying.

Peter Pinne